Reducing CPU and network overhead for small I/O requests in network storage protocols over raw Ethernet

— Small I/O requests are important for a large number of modern workloads in the data center. Traditionally, storage systems have been able to achieve low I/O rates for small I/O operations because of hard disk drive (HDD) limitations that are capable of about 100-150 IOPS (I/O operations per second) per spindle. Therefore, the host CPU processing capacity and network link throughput have been relatively abundant for providing these low rates. With new storage device technologies, such as NAND Flash Solid State Drives (SSDs) and non-volatile memory (NVM), it is becoming common to design storage systems that are able to support millions of small IOPS. At these rates, however, both server CPU and network protocol are emerging as the main bottlenecks for achieving large rates for small I/O requests. Most storage systems in datacenters deliver I/O operations over some network protocol. Although there has been extensive work in low-latency and high-throughput networks, such as Infiniband...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2015
• Where: MSS
• Authors: Pilar Gonzalez-Ferez, Angelos Bilas
• Keywords: Hardware, MSS 2015